The Battle of Stalingrad lasted more than six months through the brutal Russian winter and ended with the German army surrendering on February 2, 1943, turning the tide of WWII. The film, set in 1942, follows a band of Soviet soldiers who take refuge in a house in the German-occupied half of Stalingrad, where they encounter a young Russian woman who has been hiding there. As a romance grows between the woman and one of the soldiers, the Red Army prepares for another devastating Nazi attack. Love, grief, passion and the freedom that only those who face death can experience are balanced against the sweeping devastation of war.